We asked some of the best sportswriters and most stylish not-sportswriters we know for their picks. Discuss. (On Twitter & Facebook if you want to get all partisan about it.)

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The San Diego Padres, 1984

The San Diego Padres, 1984

Although I've never worked in a Taco Bell, I do own a vintage 1984 San Diego Padres hat. Which is pretty much one and the same, save for the fact that — generally speaking — I don't smell like a chalupa. I digress. The '84 Padres boast the greatest hat of all time, and not merely because it was extraordinarily ugly; the unique-and-unfathomable marriage of awful colors and unimaginative design. No, what made the cap so memorable is that, with the single motion of placing it atop a head, even the greatest of ballplayers turned into fast-food distributors. I'm not joking here. Tony Gwynn, for example, is a lifetime .338 hitter who was enshrined in Cooperstown on the first ballot. He is a wonderful man, a blessed ballplayer, and an all-time San Diego legend. Yet, in that particular cap, he looks like Bob, the guy asking whether you'll have Pepsi or Sprite with that burrito. —Jeff Pearlman, Columnist, SportsIllustrated.com

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The New York Mets Original

The New York Mets Original

It's the fiftieth anniversary of the Mets this year, so they're wearing throwback
uniforms, down to the jackets and caps. Except one big difference:
Their cap has a little orange dot up top. This is not the original
Mets cap. The original Mets cap is the most beautiful hybrid of the worst color scheme imaginable: the New York Giants orange NY-insignia with the Brooklyn Dodgers blue. On one level, it's a terrible, disgusting
cap — the colors clash horribly. It isn't the Yankees navy-blue and
white; the Phillies red-and-white; the Cubs red, white, and blue. It's
cigarette-ash orange and royal blue. It isn't classic in any way. And
yet, fifty years later, after several generations behind them (and
several color schemes — black caps, I'm looking at you), the Mets have made it their own. Take a stroll in Brooklyn and any guy worth
his salt wears the correct Mets cap. It's a status symbol. You have
fashion sense, you exude New York bona fides, and, most importantly,
you are asserting yourself as a 99-percenter. You are not a Yankees
fan. You know how to wear a cap with integrity. —John Koblin, Deadspin

The San Diego Padres, 1984

Although I've never worked in a Taco Bell, I do own a vintage 1984 San Diego Padres hat. Which is pretty much one and the same, save for the fact that — generally speaking — I don't smell like a chalupa. I digress. The '84 Padres boast the greatest hat of all time, and not merely because it was extraordinarily ugly; the unique-and-unfathomable marriage of awful colors and unimaginative design. No, what made the cap so memorable is that, with the single motion of placing it atop a head, even the greatest of ballplayers turned into fast-food distributors. I'm not joking here. Tony Gwynn, for example, is a lifetime .338 hitter who was enshrined in Cooperstown on the first ballot. He is a wonderful man, a blessed ballplayer, and an all-time San Diego legend. Yet, in that particular cap, he looks like Bob, the guy asking whether you'll have Pepsi or Sprite with that burrito. —Jeff Pearlman, Columnist, SportsIllustrated.com

2Of11

The New York Mets Original

It's the fiftieth anniversary of the Mets this year, so they're wearing throwback
uniforms, down to the jackets and caps. Except one big difference:
Their cap has a little orange dot up top. This is not the original
Mets cap. The original Mets cap is the most beautiful hybrid of the worst color scheme imaginable: the New York Giants orange NY-insignia with the Brooklyn Dodgers blue. On one level, it's a terrible, disgusting
cap — the colors clash horribly. It isn't the Yankees navy-blue and
white; the Phillies red-and-white; the Cubs red, white, and blue. It's
cigarette-ash orange and royal blue. It isn't classic in any way. And
yet, fifty years later, after several generations behind them (and
several color schemes — black caps, I'm looking at you), the Mets have made it their own. Take a stroll in Brooklyn and any guy worth
his salt wears the correct Mets cap. It's a status symbol. You have
fashion sense, you exude New York bona fides, and, most importantly,
you are asserting yourself as a 99-percenter. You are not a Yankees
fan. You know how to wear a cap with integrity. —John Koblin, Deadspin

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The Montreal Expos, 1969-1991

Quite simply, if you wore the hat, and nobody asked you what happened to the pinwheel on top, then you didn't have any real friends. From 1969 until 1991, the Montreal Expos, the gloriously doomed stepchild of major-league baseball, wore a baseball cap sectioned off into red, white, and blue, with a tricolor "M" on the front. Out in Oakland, Charlie Finley was getting a lot of run by putting his Athletics in garish green-and-gold. We Expo fans laughed at this. Compared to our cap, Finley was dressing his players in mourning. These caps were truly revolutionary acts. Wearing them said, "I Am Not A Yankee" in the fullest sense of the latter word. The team plays in Washington now. Their caps are red. It is a poorer world. —Charles P. Pierce, The Politics Blog, Grantland

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The St. Louis Cardinals

The basic red of the St. Louis Cardinals is the most perfectly designed hat possible. Each of the letters is at precisely the right proportion; if any of the three were even a centimeter longer, it would destroy the whole design. It's classic but not stuffy, eternal without making a big show of it. It is, like the 90 feet between bases, and the 60-foot-6-inches between the plate and home, absolute perfection. It simply cannot be improved upon. —Will Leitch, Contributing Editor, New York; Movie Critic, Gawker; leitch.tumblr.com

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Sony Xperia ION

The Montgomery Biscuits

This is a hat that's made by the logo. The color scheme's fine and all, but it's the logo that makes it stand out. A logo can be anything, but if you're going to anthropomorphize it, it should probably be menacing, because the whole idea is that you're looking to intimidate and defeat the other team. Tampa's AA affiliate has gone in the opposite direction, perhaps because it would be next to impossible to draw up a menacing biscuit. The hat features a biscuit that is unmistakably kindly and shy. You see it and you want to play with it, like an enthusiastic dog. It's completely disarming. I'm young and white and I live in Portland, so I can hardly tell anymore when I'm being genuine or ironic, but I'm pretty sure I do think this is the best baseball hat. It is so over-the-top unintimidating that, for me, it works better than those intended to intimidate. —Jeff Sullivan, MLB Editor, SBnation.com

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The Detroit Tigers

The Old English Ds sharp, classic lines epitomize the city where I grew up: ernest, often outmoded, and never fey. —Ty Duffy, Writer, The Big Lead

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The Wichita State Shockers

Growing up just outside Wichita, the first really good baseball I got to see live-and-in-person was the local college team, The Wichita State Shockers. "Schockers" came about as a tribute to the school's earliest students, who would quite literally shock — or harvest — wheat to pay their tuition. I'll forever remember the time then-Cleveland Indian Joe Carter showed up to pay his respects to his coach, Gene Stephenson (who is still the coach today, some 28 years later). And somewhere, there's a photo of a gap-toothed-little-me with WuShock, the Shockers's mascot in a pair of torn jeans and a Wichita Shockers two-way ball cap. Black with a gold front panel, and a big cursive "W" — which I actually thought stood for "Wastler." —Max Wastler, All Plaid Out

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The Kinston Indians

A guilty pleasure is all the Cleveland Indian or Atlanta Braves stuff — the feathers, and arrows, and whatnot. Not my place really to comment on Chief Wahoo or Nokahoma patches from previous eras. Part of the soft spot for this stuff is that a friend had a — let's just say "try out" — for the Braves during one very hot, long day game. The guys down at the station gave him a nice tomahawk chant when he arrived. The Kinston Indians, which is a Carolina league Class-A affiliate of the Indians, still do have a great cap, too. —James Fox, 10engines.com

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The Louisville Bats

The Bats have the best hat in baseball. Period. Let's wrap this up and grab a drink, because no one can touch this guy. The problem with most minor-league logos and a decent number of major-league ones (I'm looking at you, Chief Wahoo) is that they're too over the top to be truly great. Sure they can be kitschy great, but the plain old awesome is hard to come by. Enter the Bats. They had a beautifully simple logo designed. A logo that could actually be considered iconic. That's rare. These are hats for bats that Pedro Cerrano would definitely steal. —Jack Moore, Senior Editor, Buzzfeed